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My experience using blades to cut plastic suggests a high tooth count, hollow ground blade. A nice cheap version for little money is the 200T Firestorm blade. This blade resulted in no chipping or melting on cast acrylic on a table saw. It resulted in slight melting with extruded acrylic on a table saw.
I have also used with great success a 120T blade on a 12" radial arm saw for cutting smaller parts out of cast acrylic, though the results on extruded acrylic were rough. I usually try to follow up any cuts with a router though.
Most standard carbide tipped router bits work fine on acrylic. I have used 1/2" pattern bits (they have a roller on top to follow a pattern clamped to the material you are cutting) with great success for creating cutouts. A 1/2" flush trim bit (similar to the pattern bit but with the roller on the bottom istead of the top) is handy for touching up your edges after assembly.
To create precise edges with the pattern bit, I picked up some scrap steel 1/8" thick, 4"x30" plate, some pre-cut 6" gusset plates and a large L-ruler to clamp down on the acrylic. Be sure to use a piece of scrap acrylic for backing so you don't mar your project material with a clamp. As long as things are clamped firmly, you can fly though the material with little effort. As with every other cutting method, go slow if you are cutting extruded acrylic since it has a tendency to get melty.
You can pick up all of these bits and blades from HD or Lowes. The blades were around $25 and the router bits around $15-$20.
In case you are not sure if you have cast or extruded . . . cast usually comes with a brown paper protective backing where extruded usually has a blue plastic backing. For any vessel of significant size, you should be using cast.
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